


all i can give you is memories

by delixate



Series: don't let me go [1]
Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Julian looking back, Love, at how he fell in love with Emma, introduction to the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6425200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delixate/pseuds/delixate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved her so much that it physically hurt. He could feel from the bottom of his stomach, a thick pull drawing him to her. He could feel it in his fingertips, in his heart. No matter what he did he couldn’t control it. He didn’t know if he wanted to. </p>
<p>//or\\</p>
<p> the introduction to Don't Let Me Go; a collection of one shots showing how Julian fell in love with Emma and vice versa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all i can give you is memories

**Author's Note:**

> So I finished Lady Midnight today and it WRECKED me. I have no bloody words to explain how I feel, so of course I turned to fanfiction. Set before Julian left for England. Enjoy! x

He loved her.

He loved her so much that it physically hurt. He could feel from the bottom of his stomach, a thick pull drawing him to her. He could feel it in his fingertips, in his heart. No matter what he did he couldn’t control it. He didn’t know if he wanted to.

For as long as he could remember, Julian Blackthorn had loved Emma Carstairs. They were best friends, inseparable since childhood. His love for her had started out as innocent, as love between two friends should. Then he started noticing.

He noticed her body, how her shadowhunter gear would hug her curves in a way that should have been illegal. He noticed how he always gravitated towards her, how he felt complete when she walked into the room. He noticed her smile that she saved just for him, a smile that melted his insides and turned him into a nerves wreck.

It was worse when they became Parabatai; everything he felt was doubled, more intense. They were connected by a bond, a bond so strong it would never break. Julian hadn’t wanted to go through with it. He knew that if he did, any chance of a romantic relationship with Emma would be lost. They would be trapped by the Parabatai bond, sentencing Julian to a lifetime of wishing and loving from afar.

“Doomed,” he muttered bitterly, kicking a stray pebble that had come into his path. He was walking towards the beach, needing a place to clear his head.

Emma had gotten back together with that ass, Cameron Ashdown. Honestly, Julian had no idea what she saw in him, apart from his looks.

But that, like so much in Julian’s life, was a lie.

He was every girls dream boyfriend. Smart, handsome, well-spoken and a great Shadowhunter. The real question he should’ve been asking was why _wouldn’t_ Emma go out with Cameron?

Julian made it to the top of the hill, looking out at the waves with the wind in his hair. A quick inspection of the beach told him that Emma was already down there, drawing different runes into the sand.

He all but ran down the sandy dune to where she was sitting, kicking off his shoes as he went along. Emma’s golden hair fell down her in waves, and as Julian sat beside her he stared, trying to decide the best way to describe it.

She looked up at him, her smile big and welcoming. Julian tried to ignore the way that smile made him feel, tried to ignore his beating heart from being so close to her.

“So, you and Cameron, huh?” he asked, trying not to let his feelings show.

“Oh not you too.”

“What?”                                

“Caroline’s been talking about nothing else but how Cameron is wrong for me.”

Julian nodded and looked down, noticing the rune that Emma had been drawing in the sand.

It was the Parabatai rune.

“She’s got a thing for you, you know.”

Julian looked up, confused. “Huh?”

Emma laughed. “Caroline’s got a crush on you.”

He nodded and looked down, uncomfortable with the situation. Caroline was a friend of Emma’s that came to the Los Angeles Institute every year for two months. She was originally from Australia, but she convinced Clary (who was head of the New York Institute where Caroline trained), that seeing as much as American culture as she could was a good thing. Julian suspected that was bull, and that Caroline only came to Los Angeles to hang out with Emma.

He looked up to see Emma staring at him, as if waiting for an answer.

“So?” he asked, feigning confusion. He knew where the conversation was headed, and he didn’t like at all.

“You may be a Shadowhunter,” Emma said, her voice soft. “But you’re still just a teenager. You can still-“

“I know,” Julian interrupted, somewhat harshly. Emma looked taken aback, and Julian immediately regretted his decision. “It’s just that I need to focus on my training, and the children.”

“I get it.”

They sat in a comfortable silence, looking out to the waves, the sound and the smell washing over Julian in a way that was comforting yet exciting, like a challenge wrapped up in a blanket of security. After a while Emma reached out and took his hand, intertwining their fingers.

_Please don’t do this Emma. Please-_

She laid back on the sand taking him down with her. The sun shone in his eyes and he couldn’t see, but the fact that Emma was holding his hand made up for it.

“I’m glad you’re my Parabatai,” she said happily, digging their intertwined hands into the sand.

_I’m not._

Julian remained silent as Emma continued talking. “I don’t ever have to worry about anything with you. You know me better than I know myself, and I don’t have to hide anything.”

_I do._

“We have a bond, not just with the whole Parabatai thing. We understand what we need, we get each other more than anybody else.” Emma looked at him then, turning to her side, an action which Julian followed. “You’re truly my best friend Jules. What we have is special,” she finished with a smile.

_It is. Just not in the way I want._

Julian let go of Emma’s hand for a fraction of a second and turned so her palm was facing upwards. He used his fingertips to draw letters as Emma laid her head back on the sand, sighing.

I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U

It wasn't unnatural for them to tell the other they loved them, because they did. As Parabatai, they had to.

“You too Jules.”

When did everything become so hard? Julian thought back to his childhood, back when his parents were still alive and he wasn’t Emma’s Parabatatai. He thought back to the hours they spent training, practising and learning Runes, sneaking into their parents rooms to use their weaponry. He thought about how they had spent their free time, climbing trees and talking about all the demons they were going to fight one day.

_One day._

That day had come and gone, and with it many others. Days that had turned Julian into a warrior, a force to be reckoned with. He was strong, he knew that. With Emma, however, he was four times the person he was without her.

At some point during Julian’s thinking, Emma had intertwined their hands again. It comforted him, knowing that she would be there, always.

Words of his Parabatai bond came back to him; _for whither thou goest, I will go._ Although it was a blessing to have Emma be with him (not at the Academy, for Parabatai couldn’t be separated,) Julian knew that the bond was the problem.

They were Parabatai, platonic soulmates. Never to fall in love, never to touch and feel each other romantically, never to see the other as more than a best friend. It was more than an order, it was a rule, the law.

And yet somewhere along the hazy line of memories, stories, photographs and feelings, Julian Blackthorn, the guy who always followed the rules, always the favored one in his training sessions and by his tutors, always the responsible and cautious one, broke the most important rule of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this wasn't too bad...please tell me what you think!


End file.
